


widespread panic

by smolarmstrong



Category: Green Day
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, kinda???, straight up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 11:24:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10512783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolarmstrong/pseuds/smolarmstrong
Summary: Mike's brain screams and screams and screams and doesn't ever shut the hell up for five seconds. Billie knows how Mike's panic attacks work.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is pretty much based off panic song, as well as a lot of stuff from 1,039/smoothed out
> 
> this is also based in like, early 1990. i watched a documentary about a venue they played up in the mountains in a cabin to like, 6 people around then?? so it's based off that night slightly
> 
> hope you enjoy

It was late, really late. It was fucking Sunday night, now Monday morning, and Mike had school. Mike had school and there he was, still lugging an amp case across a gravel road where it bumped and prodded every-which-way it could. His back stung like no tomorrow, clawed muscles ripped shreds all the way down to his weak legs.

Somehow, he never felt more alive than in that single moment.

Mike slammed the amp case into the back of their beat up van, making the suspension sway and retch. He wiped a thick chunk of hair from his forehead, where it was stuck with sweat. He let out a big sigh, and was just about to turn back when an unknown hand stuck out of god-knows-where and gave Mike’s ass a hard _smack!_

Mike started at the hit, whipping around and sticking his hands up straight, ready to use the moves he learned from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Quickly, his hands fell, and felt a sense of dull annoyance as well has a sense of pure bliss and happiness as he finally saw who it was - Billie, giggling to himself and tossing a guitar case carelessly into the van.

“Nice cat like reflexes, Casanova,” Billie chuckled out as he shoved around a few cases to make room for the stage full of equipment they still had to lug over.

“Haha, super funny, like you wouldn’t be scared if someone came up and slapped your ass in pure darkness, _especially_ out where we are. Do you think they even have plumbing? Running water? An outhouse?” Mike mumbled in a false annoyed tone as he began helping Billie shove around the cases in a haste.

“I think I saw an outhouse on our way in, like, little moon cut out in the door and everything, y’know?” Billie took a step back to admire his handy work. “Real authentic,” he punctuated his sentence with a wink, which Mike was nearly one-thousand-percent oblivious too, because he could barely even _see_ Billie’s fucking face let alone his wide hooded eyes, crooked teeth, tiny shoulders, tiny fucking _everything_. Tiny ball of weird beauty and energy and euphoria.

Mike couldn’t put an exact word to Billie. A thousand adjectives always flashed before his eyes when he saw Billie laugh, saw him play, saw him high. Most of the time, his brain just screamed, “Kiss him, mother fucker! Kiss the shit out of him!” Pretty soon after that Mike would have a panic attack and Billie would coax him down, rub at his knees, wipe the stale tears off his face, shush him and sing him shitty Queen covers that he knew Mike hated and secretly loved. It happened after every show, and each time all Mike wanted to do is kiss Billie and fall into the floor, melt into nothing with his best friend connected at his hip.

Mike thought he needed a new medication.

His brain screamed at him now, a broken record of, “Reach down, kiss him, reach down, kiss him,” with a few, “Don’t be a fuckin’ pussy!” thrown in there here and there. All Mike could say to Billie was, “Cool,” before his chest sunk in and he had to go somewhere, get an amp, get fucking anything, anything to get away from Billie and not break down in the middle of nowhere and have Billie fucking baby him and fuck, Mike is so fucked because his hands are shaking and his knees are gonna give out, he just knows it--

“Hey, hey Mike! Look at me real quick, look me in the eyes real fast,” Billie snatched Mike’s wrists in his hands quickly, placed Mike’s shaking hands on his face. Billie tried to smile to Mike, reassure him of nothing in particular, give him something to look at, to focus on rather than whatever’s going on his head. “Hey Mike, hey Mike, do you wanna go sit in the van for a little bit? We can get everything else later, let’s go sit down for a second, yeah?” Billie felt Mike’s blunt fingertips scratch a little at his face, run down his cheeks. He took that as Mike’s form of “Yes,” and guided Mike blindly to the slide out door of the van.

Billie opened the door and walked in backwards, eyes glued to Mike as he tried to assess Mike’s face as best as he could in the darkness still stark in the van. He didn’t let his hands leave Mike’s wrists for a second, keeping him grounded to something as his brain went through the process it did.

He and Mike sat across from each other, Mike in a somewhat fetal position, Billie sitting on his knees, crouched low so he can see Mike’s face tucked into his chest.

“Mike, hey hey Mike, can you please look at me? I wanna see your _gorrrgeeeooouuuusss faaaacccceeeee_ ,” Billie drew out his words, wiggling Mike’s arms around slightly trying to get him to laugh, to look up, to do _anything_. “Mike please, it’s Billie. I’ll start singing Don’t Stop Me Now really really loud and really really out of key if you don’t look at me and laugh or smile, show me those ugly pearly whites!”

Mike managed to pull his head up slightly to look at Billie. His eyes were glazed over, thick with something, and his shoulders started retching, shaking as his chest heaved for any breath it could take in. His mouth hung open, and out came a strange wheezing sound that sounded somewhat like an asthma attack. Mike started hyperventilating - hands, legs, his whole body shaking seemingly from the inside out.

“Gosh, Mike, hold on to me, you’re not alone, okay? I’m here, I swear. I’m not moving a single inch,” Billie spoke softly and slowly. “Do you wanna try to breathe with me? We can do that square breathing thing, do it with me Mike. In for four,” Billie breathed in. “Hold it,” Billie mumbled through his full lungs, “Out for four.” Billie heaved out his breath, a bit shaky itself. “And don’t breathe at all for four, and do that over and over with me, please Mike, in for four.” Billie went through the breaths over and over until he could finally see Mike trying to do it with him. “Yeah yeah, that’s it dude! We’re gonna keep goin’, push me anywhere if you need me to stop, slow down, speed up, do anything. I’m right here.”

They sat like that for a long time. Billie saw the minutes click by on Mike’s clunky digital watch. Soon enough, Mike’s knees were falling from their position where they were connected to his chest, his arms were falling limp in Billie’s lap. Billie waited a minute or so before he even said anything.

“Sore?” was all Billie could muster out. He saw Mike’s head slump back on his shoulders. Billie could see the sheen of his eyes through his heavy lids. All Mike could do was nod his head. Billie gave a small smile - sympathetic or worried, he couldn’t really say. “C’mere dude, I’m not super chubby but I had like, two baskets of fries, so my stomach is probably soft as hell and totally pillow worthy.” As Billie began to lay down on their paper thin mattress they keep in the van, he could see Mike give a loopy smile at Billie’s words. Billie gave a huge grin back, and even though Mike probably couldn’t see it, it ripped into his face even more, a sense of happiness, bliss, euphoria.

Mike slumped down right at Billie’s diaphragm, knocking a little wind out of the smaller man but he didn’t care. Almost immediately, hands began carding through sandy brunet hair. Mike slumped into the touch, almost like a dog getting pet. In that moment, Billie felt nothing but pure, pure joy.

Almost subconsciously, Billie mumbled out, “I love you.” Billie realized his mistake immediately, and his hand stopped it’s roam through Mike’s hair as his brain assessed every possible outcome, each one worse than the last as he waited for Mike to say something, anything.

What Billie didn’t expect was for Mike to push himself up with shaky, weak arms. He didn’t expect for a second for Mike to sit up, grab Billie’s face in his hands, and smash their faces together, lips colliding in a weird kiss that literally had sparks shooting behind Billie’s eyelids. Billie jumped quickly to kiss back, to place his hands softly onto Mike’s, wrapping around his hands and linking them together.

They stayed close for a moment after they pulled away. Mike mumbled softly against Billie’s lips, almost in a sleep like trance, “I love you too, so much, a lot, more than you could ever quantify in one single thing of quantifying. Numbers or something.” Mike kissed Billie once more, softly this time, with more shyness, with more passion, with more all-of-the-fucking-above. “I love you, Billie Joe, I love you love you love you.”

Mike moved to sit beside Billie, where he laid his head on the smaller’s shoulder. He fell asleep soon after, his hand laced with Billie’s, leaving Billie up, stark awake, hand ghosting over his lips to feel the touch again, to process that it was even real, that it really happened.

Mike started having fewer and fewer panic attacks. When he did get them, Billie would breathe with him, laugh with him, kiss his forehead, his cheeks, his lips. Billie knew how to handle Mike’s panic attacks, he was a pro, and each time one popped up, Mike would fall in love with Billie more and more and more.


End file.
